The Five Pillars
by Stone Shield
Summary: So far just a rough epilogue, setting the stage. Intended: Naruto, post-4th war, arrives before canon Freezing. Too soon for the rest, but initial pairings are implied.


The Five Pillars

Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto or Freezing.

"Speech/**Demonic Speech**"  
"_Thought_"

AN/ Just _another_ idea that I'd been fiddling with. It's mostly a teaser, something to lay the groundwork.

* * *

Prologue: A Ripple Effect

"You see the news? There's a massive storm over Greenland."

The coworker, decked out in a similar lab coat, threw back the remains of his coffee. "Greenland, eh? Least it's not here."

* * *

Meters away, separated by layers of metal plating, embedded layers of wiring and circuitry, and impact glass, an old man sat at a panel, multiple computer screens laid out before him. Each screen pertained to the contents of the five large cylinders that were the focus of the isolated lab.

Gengo Aoi had aged well for his years…considering the stress he bore on a daily basis. Yet…every time he came in to his personal lab and saw the lives that still waited for him to help them…he always felt so very old. Some of his less productive days were usually spent staring at equations and the latest studies, searching for some small miracle, but to no avail.

Each cylinder was exactly the same as the next. Four-foot wide, they climbed from the floor to the ceiling, with exception for the tops and bottoms where machinery played its part in maintaining their contents. Within, a semi-translucent fluid. But it was what the tanks housed that truly mattered.

These were his daughters.

Saviors for all mankind. That was their underlying purpose, but they were still his daughters, and his love for them kept him working late hours every day for the past thirty-six years. All in the hopes of returning the lives that had been cut so short.

* * *

(Greenland, 2 Days Later)

There wasn't any rain. For a storm as ugly as the one that'd loomed in the skies for the better part of a week, there wasn't much to show for it. Frothing, black and grey soup filled the skies, illuminated by crackling lightning.

One particularly violent crack of thunder shook the skies, preceded by a stream of lightning that sewed its way through the black clouds. Even as the first blast faded, the lightshow continued as more and more lightning bolts gathered, focusing on a single spot.

And then…nothing. The lightning chains quite suddenly faded.

Dark as it was, dangerous as the weather had been, none had been near enough to see the form that fell from the heavens like a broken kite.

* * *

(Dr. Aoi's Personal Lab. That same time.)

"Bp…Bp…Bp…Bp…Bp…"

Head lifting from his arms, Gengo scrubbed furiously at his eyes. Damn his old body for falling asleep on the job. Then again, he couldn't help but wonder how many days it'd been since he'd last had eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. Hell, when was the last time he'd had longer than _four_ hours?

The headache behind his eyes told him it'd been _too_ long.

Sighing, he leaned back in his chair, his back aching at the sudden change in position. It was after a minute of staring blearily at the ceiling that he finally noticed the odd intermittent beeps. Blinking, he focused dry, burning eyes on the screen just to his immediate left.

-DECREASE IN NOVA PROGRESSION NOTED-

At first, he wrote it off. The machines always said the same thing. That the progression to Nova was held at a certain percent. The numbers hadn't changed in decades. Nothing to… Rubbing his eyes again to be certain they were clear, he reread the text. No, he'd read it correctly.

His hand looked about ready to shake right off the wrist as he raised it to the screen, fingers tracing the readout. In the last two hours, all five had shown decreases in their halted progression to Nova. It wasn't at a steady rate. Chiffon was reverting the fastest, then Lucy, the remaining three lagging behind, but… But they were all showing marked rates of transition back away from becoming Nova.

His rational mind wanted to find the logical reason behind this.

The part that loved his daughters wanted to break down in tears of thanks.

The computer projected rates of recovery for all. Should the reversal continue, Chiffon would be the first to revert, but that would take at least a month. Alice would need almost twice that. And his remaining daughters…Cassandra, Windy, Teslad…a year at their rate of recovery and his all daughters would return.

Palming the tears out of his eyes, sure, now absolutely sure of what he was reading, the father in him stepped aside for the scientist. It was now time to discern _why_ and _how_ this was happening. There had been no scheduled tests or anything really. Nothing that they'd done at all.

He did arch his brows at one or two peculiar findings. Like their neural activity. Brain activity was rising from its previous coma levels, but was stabilizing at a level seen in deep dream-like states.

What well and truly caught his attention was the time. All five had started their slow recovery at the exact same moment.

02:11:08AM

That did give him a baseline to work with, correlating any pertinent data around that time.

It would be months before he even had an inkling of what caused this miracle.

* * *

4 Months Later…

Shoulder-length blonde hair catching in the wind, Chiffon stood on the roof of the laboratory, watching nothing and everything, all that she could see. It'd been like no time at all had passed, felt that way, yet she knew better.

Lucy was downstairs, Dr. Aoi running his tests. She tried to maintain a professional outlook, but he really did hover like a father.

He calculated a further year before their sisters would be able to leave their hibernation slash rejuvenation chambers.

Ever since awakening, and she could swear it was the same even before then, she had felt something pulling her attention. Even now, it called her attention to the western horizon. It was almost nothing, easily pushed aside unless actually thought about. Initially, she'd confided this sensation with Lucy once she'd woken. It caught her utterly unprepared to hear her sister make the same claim.

It was at that point that they'd alerted Dr. Aoi.

The "field trip" was still in the works. Dr. Aoi was adamant in letting them follow their instincts, but with ample support. It was a few days away, but they would be allowed a transport helicopter, and he himself would accompany them.

* * *

AN/ And that's a wrap for another little starter work. Really wish this would stop. More ideas come and yet I've got plenty of stories already that need my attention. But not putting these bits down would be like holding in a sneeze... I'd be lucky if my chest didn't explode in the attempt.


End file.
